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Blessard Animation Productions
Blessard Animation Productions was an animation studio based in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded by Byron Blessard in 1995 and lasted until around 2018 (it had closed professionally in 2005 but the name had still been used as a rights holder.) In spite of Blessard also running publishing company Route 90 Publishing, this was unrelated to that company. History Blessard was a co-creator on the graphic novel series The Halloween Gang, alongside Elliot Strange. Strange had gone to Blessard due to his lack of experience with publication units. Throughout its lifespan, Blessard and Strange clashed over how they wanted the series to play out. Blessard claimed ownership of the series behind Strange's back. In 1994, Blessard challenged Strange to produce a pilot based on how they wanted to handle the series. Strange moved to Toronto around this time, getting his completed and released in 2000. Blessard wanted to hire Fred Wolf Films to produce his pilot, being a fan of the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, but was unable to due to financial issues. Using a few employees from Route 90 along with proceeds from book sales, Blessard set up his own studio to produce the animation. Blessard used his budget sparingly. He managed to secure union actors, but only temporarily and had to use whatever takes he had, worst case doing the voice himself in the midst of unsalvageable material. Blessard presented his pilot to Fox Kids, and in order to hide the quality of his work, presented stills that were of a much better quality. The pilot only aired once and Blessard was barred from any future submissions. The next year, Blessard stepped down from Route 90 and dedicated himself to producing animation. He went to his church, Unitarian Universalist Church, with the intent of producing a series of educational religious videos. The videos were distributed to various religious schools and screened. Three titles came from this, each hand drawn by Blessard single-handedly, but after the church stopped funding for it, Blessard changed the title to The Lost Ones and produced it with 3D animation. The company stopped producing new content by 2005, but remained open as a rights management firm, remaining so until late-September of 2019 following Blessard's incarceration. Criticism Since 1996, Blessard was the only active member of the studio. For future productions, he did all of the work. This has often led to inconsistencies with characters and environments and drawn out scenes where little ever happens. He had been compared unfavorably to Phil Nibbelink who had also done animated features single-handedly in retrospective reviews, with the company's production methods being compared to DiC Entertainment in terms of visual errors and cost-cutting measures. The overall appearance of The Halloween Gang was criticized for its outdated atmosphere, Blessard took heavy inspiration from various 80s cartoons and replicated it wholesale. Releases Blessard came under fire for his production methods. During the production of The Halloween Gang, out of fear over Strange potentially getting his own pilot out first, Blessard had his employees work long periods, ranging from ten to eleven hours. Artists found themselves suffering from carpel tunnel syndrome and blood clots and as a result, Blessard was forced to finish the remainder on his own. While submitting his project to Fox, he had shown them stills for an entirely different project, perhaps out of fear that The Halloween Gang would be rejected. He had tried this with various other networks as because of his fraudulent conduct, he was unable to secure any further work in the mainstream animation industry. During the production of the Go With series, Blessard was accused of embezzling money from the Unitarian Universalist Church. When they reviewed the tapes they backed, they discovered that they cost less to make than they payed him for. In addition, the tapes didn't present Unitarian ideals which Blessard had promised; indeed, most tapes portray god in the Christian sense or indirectly debunk religious ideals with science. Teachers who received the tapes had either returned them to the church or burned them after their initial screening. False C&D Claims Since 2005, Blessard used his company as a rights holder. After securing patents on his productions, he had threatened legal action against people who criticized his works on the basis of supposed slander or potentially cutting down on job opportunities for Blessard. Through to 2007, he had taken down ten review blogs and websites before getting hit with a lawsuit by the family of his youngest target, a then teenager working on a personal blog that was spread across various forums. Reviews of his works were posted on YouTube, and Blessard flagged them down, along with reposts of his videos since his own had the ratings and comments disabled. He had also left negative comments on most videos related to him. Viewers have mocked him vehemently and made channels dedicated to reposting his work and cataloging his worst comments. Blessard made two videos in response, one that mocked his critics (portraying them as exaggeratedly angry people and incorporating religion into his arguments), the other trying to explain the purpose behind copyright. In retaliation, a five video series created by DopleDepod in cooperation with Elliot Strange were created, called "Brian's World". It was a puppet show designed to mock Blessard's beliefs and attitude toward critics. Blessard became a center of ridicule but continued to flag videos until 2019. Pedophilia Accusations In a 2002 entry for the Go With series, Blessard touched upon pedophilia. The protagonist was outed for assaulting a child, but was intended to be sympathized with, and got let free by the end while the antagonist was mocked for reporting him to the police, getting the conflict going. Around this time, Blessard opened up a discussion forum. Various irate viewers took to criticizing the video (including rival Strange.) Blessard resorted to banning his critics. Around this time, Blessard attracted more fans and began hosting viewing parties. The few kids who went were greeted by grown men. The parents of one of their children responded to an alarming phone call and found that one of the guests had drugged one of the children with the intent of molesting them. Blessard refused to call the police. A boycott took place the next week, and the Lost Ones series was promptly cancelled. In 2008, Blessard's website was hacked and replaced with a message condemning Blessard. Strange was blamed for it but claimed that while he supported the hacking, he had no involvement. In 2019, Blessard faced more pedophilia allegations. An anonymous call was given to the police of Blessard supposedly fondling a teenage boy during a tutoring lesson. Blessard's house was broken into and the police discovered copies of child porn in his room and on his computer. Blessard was registered as a sex offender and is currently serving a five to twenty year sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution.